Crooklyn (1994)

Another return to childhood, Spike Lee’s memoir film (co-written with two of his siblings) about the filmmaker’s youth growing up in 1970s Brooklyn amid five kids, a proud jazz musician father (Delroy Lindo), a no-bullshit mom (Alfre Woodard), and an atmosphere thick with infectious pop songs, Norman Lear sitcoms, urban street games, and a sense of a day and age in which many urban neighborhoods were communities instead of war zones.